Tibetan Rugs

Artist and photographer Rudi Molacek has assembled, with an artist’s eye, an idiosyncratic collection of more than 300 Tibetan carpets, rugs, mats, seat-, bench- and saddle-covers. Between the 15th and the 20th centuries they were woven for both sacred and secular purposes by Tibetan nomads and villagers, and in the shadow of monastic centres across the Tibetan Plateau. The first volume presents Tibetan rugs intended for sitting, sleeping, meditation and horse riding, as well as those made to furnish the region’s prestigious temples and monasteries — an expression of the relative wealth and status of their owners. The second volume focuses on a group of so-called ‘Wangden’ rural rugs, characterised by a unique weaving technique, some of which have been the subject of an illuminating exercise in radiocarbon dating to establish the antiquity of the tradition.